Don't Just Choose Surgeon, but Backup and Support Staff!

Surgeon: Dr. Tholen
Backup caregiver when Tholen in hospital: his partner, Gervais
Tholen gets mostly high marks for being approachable
Marks for facelift: adequate
Marks for necklift: POOR, I still have a turkey gobble, left side barely improved.
NOTICE how few facelift reviews are here for Minneapolis Plastic Surgery.
The partner surgeon, Gervais is someone to be very cautious of.
Suffers from poor boundary issues.
Office staff: Sarah is fabulous, but business mgr. Patient-contact people are called “nurses” but have no obvious medical training. They simply parrot what they’ve heard. Don’t know difference between sensory and motor nerves. I know more about anatomy under skin from my training and research than they do. Poor customer service skills when things not going smoothly.

My Story about Minneapolis Plastic Surgery
To be included in future facelift article

It has been three months since my facelift. Because my surgeon has recently received an emergency surgery, I am in my surgeon’s office but meeting with his surgeon-business-partner, who later this day I will learn –by all appearances-- is not excited to be offering care to a patient for whom no bill can be sent. I paid my surgeon for my care even before I went to surgery. Office staff tried in vain to get me to wait 30 days for my surgeon to return to work, but my last consult was –eleven-- days after surgery when my face and neck were still overly swollen. I am now at day --seventy-- and I have need of talking to someone with medical knowledge about the motor nerve damage leaving my upper right lip paralyzed, lumpy swelling on my right cheek, and uncorrected saggy neck skin on the left side of my neck that I am certain will require a second surgery. My doctor doesn’t know yet of my need for a second surgery because although I tried to see him in the 4th week I was told by his “nurse” not to bother him until after 6 weeks of ultrasound treatments. Then six weeks later, the day before that appointment I was told because he was getting his own surgery I would need to wait another four weeks. Well, I knew that was never going to happen. Enough is enough! I fought to get in to see his partner, the other surgeon. It’s not a pretty story. Just remember what I’m saying. I was forced to fight to see my surgeon’s partner after 10 weeks of being blocked from seeing my own surgeon.
*

I am sitting in an examination chair, not unlike a dentist’s chair. My heels are hooked on the attached footrest and the chair is in the upright position, but said chair is made to lean back when stitches are removed or treatment of some kind is rendered. This new doctor – my surgeon’s partner-- and I are talking, but he thinks I am only there to get a steroid shot for my still overly swollen right cheek. He makes a big announcement and lectures me about why he cannot give me the shot. He insists I return for four more weeks of ultrasound treatments and then see my own doctor, which is beginning to frustrate me because (1) I have three issues to discuss, and (2) I have done the research and there is no published evidence that ultrasound helps repair damaged tissue. Because I live outstate, a fifteen minute ultrasound treatment costs me 3-4 hours with commute and since I’ve noticed zero improvement from what seems to be the standard offer of six weeks of free ultrasound treatments, at this time I’m feeling like they are simply placating me with more cheap tricks while I wait for my doctor to return. These treatments may be cheap to them, but they are not cheap to me. So doc#2 and I kind of go round and round.
Then suddenly doc#2--Gervais-- sits down on a stool and pulls it directly in front of the procedural chair in which I sit. This is about the time I ask him if he would be willing(since i can't get to my own doc-- to do my second surgery, and a few minutes after answering “yes,” he rolls the stool closer and then places both feet on the foot rest alongside my own feet. One of his feet now rests right next to my right foot and one rests right next to my left foot. He has pinned me into place. There is no place for me to go. I want desperately to get up and move to a chair at the back of the room, but I cannot. There’s no place to put my feet except between his legs. I’m voiceless. I’m paralyzed. I’m weirded-out.
I don’t remember how this event fits within the rest of our conversation, but at some point he backs off. I do remember continuing to be very angry and testy throughout the rest of the conversation. I leave feeling disturbed. Confused. Angry.

*

By the end of the week, my long silent surgeon finally phones me. By this time, though, I have already been courting the idea that it might be best for me to research other surgeons for my second surgery, which I won’t need for months. If I stay with my surgeon his work will be free, or included in the original professional fee, but this week it has become very clear to me that this is not about the money. Money is simply not the reason to stay with this office. It turns out I like my surgeon but I do not like the way his “nurse” handles problems (i.e. me) when he is gone, and I’m presently loathing his partner who is the only one there is to offer backup care in the event something else goes wrong for my chosen doctor. But i'm also concerned that if he did a poor job on my neck the first time if he even would be able to do an adequate fix the second time around.
I tell my surgeon on the phone that I am unhappy that I had to fight to get an appointment with his partner. I don’t tell him that his partner has now been added to my “Weird Doctor” list. Not knowing even how to reconcile the weird doctor’s behavior with what must be universal expectations of proper doctor decorum, and not wanting to worry my worryful partner, I’m aware when I hang up the phone that I have yet to tell my husband about this new upsetting little event with a medical professional.
*

On his first day back in the office, I drive to Minneapolis to see my surgeon. During the drive from outstate I notice my eyes pinch and hurt, my vision blurs. I stop to drink a cup of coffee to open up the blood vessels to my brain. It helps, but I am surprised that I am feeling symptoms of intense stress. Symptoms that only plague me during the worst moments of my life. I didn’t know I felt this bad about returning to my surgeon’s office. My body is telling me I’m still fearful of what I’ve tried not to complain about. What I’ve not told to anyone.
The office visit reminds me why I chose this surgeon. I really like him. But on this day at this time I hate everything else about this office. I especially hate his “nurse” who made me fight to see his partner. Who treated me like a seventh grader. Who wanted me to be a good little soldier and wait to see my own doctor, first for six weeks, then for four more. I talk about my frustrations, then finally give it to her directly – with both guns-- all the while knowing although I am justified in complaining about the staff being expedient but uncaring, the uncontrollable ranting of my delivery is undermining my case. But I am also aware of what I am not sharing; the revulsion I feel for this practice’s other surgeon. Why do men act stupid like that? He knew he was invading my personal space. But I fear to have so many complaints at once could only make me look crazy, like I am piling it on. At the worst I might be accused of making the whole thing up, and the least I might just be seen as someone who is never happy with anything. All the way home I am forced to drive with pinching painful eyes, and I keep thinking about how surprisingly stressful it has been for me to return to that office.

*
When my husband comes home he inquires about my visit with my surgeon. I’m prepared. I’ve already scheduled another appointment at a time he can accompany me because I don’t want to go alone. Today my body has taught me how uncomfortable I am in my surgeon’s office, and I need my husband to help me figure out the safest place to get my second surgery. Finally I tell my husband about how Dr. Gervais moved into my personal space, trapped me in the examination chair, and willfully attempted to intimidate me into... what? Compliant behavior? Making me not want to see him again? Using reverse psychology to temper my frustration for having to get into a fight to see him? What was Gervais thinking? That I would never tell my doctor what he had done? Or was he hoping I would? Did he plan to defend himself by saying I was crazy and it never happened? Has he ever done this to any other patient or was I the first one? Where was his head????
I can’t figure it out and now neither can my spouse.
I just want to walk away. I really don’t want to deal with this. I’m damn sad that my surgeon wasn’t able to finish my neck the first time around.